6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 3.9 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.3 |
A battle royale takes place every 10 years in an unsuspecting town as a group of contestants made up of the world's greatest assassins fight it out to the death.
Starring: Robert Carlyle, Kelly Hu, Ving Rhames, Rachel Grant, Ian SomerhalderThriller | 100% |
Action | 96% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Back in the days before the home video market ever existed, television in the late 1960’s became littered with what were optimistically labeled “World Premiere” events. While some of these nascent straight to video (as in airwaves) features actually did see a theatrical release in Europe, most were simply nothing other than 90 minute to two hour tarted up versions of episodic series fare, usually featuring any given network’s stars of the moments, along with “special guest stars” who were usually either mostly forgotten A-listers of a previous era or current B-listers who, when compared to their small screen counterparts, actually tended to give a project a touch of starry class. Once home video took off, a lot of these made for television items actually filled the marketplace of those first VHS tapes and, later, DVDs. The straight to video market has ostensibly become more sophisticated, but that’s of course a relative term, as something like The Tournament makes abundantly clear. This feature had an evidently long and tortured production history, and despite being touted as a potential theatrical release, seems consigned to the straight to home video market to achieve whatever return on its investment it’s likely to reap. Like a lot of this kind of release, there are passing pleasures to be had, but overall the film is a mishmash of ideas and techniques you’ve seen a thousand times before. It’s a relentless action thrill ride, that much can’t be denied, but there’s really not much else to The Tournament other than a series of usually well executed (in every sense of that word) sequences where various professional assassins meet their maker in what is supposed to be a once in every seven years’ tournament to crown the best professional killer in the world. There’s not enough character background here for an audience to become emotionally involved in the story, and in fact the closest thing to achieving lasting interest may be a sort of drinking game where you get to take a swig every time a hapless fallen Priest (Robert Carlyle, evidently picking up a paycheck), who gets sucked into the tournament unawares, manages to escape the muzzle of a gun and/or the sharp blade of a knife pointed at his grizzled head. That drinking game might also have the unintended (or, indeed, intended) effect of numbing the senses to the rest of the lunacy which makes The Tournament a brain dead actioner that never does anything much more than leave a trail of corpses in its wake.
The Tournament has a surprisingly strong transfer, courtesy of an AVC encode, in 1080p and 1.78:1. Though it was probably shot on a pittance, the film looks decently sharp, with nicely saturated colors and some excellent fine detail. A lot of the film is filtered to that ice blue side of things that so many directors and DP's think make an action flick look "cool" (as, literally, blue does), and that can give an odd cast to fleshtones and surroundings at times. But I was really kind of pleasantly surprised throughout much of The Tournament with the level of clarity, with some exceptional depth of field in many of the exterior shots. This doesn't have that lo-fi telefilm ambience which hampers a lot of lower budgeted releases. This is certainly not top of the line hi-def material, but for something of this ilk, it looks a lot better than you might expect it to.
Even better is the bombastic lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix. Of course with an action flick like The Tournament, you know you're going to be pummeled by LFE, and that's certainly the case here. The fight sequences erupt through the surround channels with a fair degree of aggression, and there's quite a bit of attention paid to details large (as in some over the top explosions) and small (as in the sound of knives being unsheathed). Dialogue (for what it's worth in this film, which frankly isn't much) is well positioned, clear and always easy to hear. And best of all this is a film that doesn't browbeat the listener with endless, thumping underscore cues. There's not anything particularly subtle about The Tournament's sound mix, but it's fun, immersive and sports excellent fidelity, and in a film with these modest ambitions, that's about all you can hope for.
No supplements are offered on this bare bones release.
Even the best of us longs for the occasional mindless piece of entertainment, and if you're in the mood for something unchallenging that features lots of explosions, gunplay and hand to hand mayhem, The Tournament should suit you to a tee. Otherwise, it's simply too generic, despite an interesting premise, to ever gain much traction. This particular Blu-ray does sport a surprisingly strong transfer, however, so might make a fun evening's rental.
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